Dear Carla Bellucci,

Not gonna lie, when I read this headline this morning, my blood ACTUALLY began to boil: Mum wants daughter, 14, to get plastic surgery because ‘ugly people get nowhere’.

First let me say, I’m not a ranter. Rather, I generally aim to keep the peace and truly try to offer grace for a wide range of perspectives that fall outside of my value system… But there is a time and a place for righteous judgment—and this is it.

Some may shake their heads, laugh at the absurdity of your statement, or write you off as a loony tune and move on—but I’m downright LIVID.

Not because you have a clearly warped view of reality or unrealistic beauty standards. You’re an adult and can do as you darn well please. But when you have the audacity to taint the precious mind of your teen daughter, there is a serious problem… And don’t even get me started on the fact that you faked depression to get a free nose job.

Children are always watching, absorbing, and molding according to your actions and words. And you are blatantly telling and SHOWING your daughter, “You’re not good enough”—a message, mind you, that she already hears screamed from the rooftops of every top fashion brand, lifestyle magazine, and Insta-perfect picture in her newsfeed.

“Tanisha isn’t the most academic of girls, so I don’t really care about her education, unlike with my boys,” you told Closer Magazine. “She will need to rely on her looks to get on in life so she will need to be perfect. Ugly people get nowhere these days.”


Photo credit: Mirror UK

Beyond your faulty, archaic beliefs about the role of education for women, you are instilling within your precious girl the idea that her identity is based on accomplishment, whether that be academic, or maintaining the perfect ‘Kardashian look with the big bum and boobs and pouty lips’ that you say she aspires to.

Which begs the question, is that REALLY a look she desires to attain, or does she truly desire mommy’s approval and love—things that should be offered unconditionally to a child?

As a recovering neurotic perfectionist who absorbed similar messages as a teen, I render this “child abuse,” in every sense of the word. The repercussions of even subtle negative messages can be devastating for malleable minds, so those inflicted by the bold lies you’re perpetuating are simply off the charts.

This bright, beautiful young woman needs to be ripped from your custody before the damage is irreversible.


Photo credit: Mirror UK

Though inflicting physical harm, of course, causes more alarm in today’s society, the unseen bleeding wounds of mental health carry just as much–if not more–weight.

And speaking of weight, and keeping it ‘perfect’…